


Going Under

by orphan_account



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Movie, Pre-Relationship, Psychological Torture, Team Feels, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:26:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Inception job, the team has disbanded and gone back to their regular lives. Cobb back to his kids, Ariadne back to school, Yusuf back to his underground dream den. As for Arthur and Eames, the only place for them is, and always will be, the world of dreamshare. They truly are the best at what they do, and bickering aside, they know this just as well as the rest of the underground community. They have traversed the world twice over stealing secrets and both in and out of dreams. The legality of their work is questionable, but when you don't exist, it doesn't really matter.</p><p>It couldn't be helped that they rose to the top so efficiently, really, though their unlikely companionship had been a surprise to everyone, including themselves in the beginning. They argued over methods of their work, but in the end, they were the right and left sides of the brain, the imagination and the logic. And when extracting from the brain was their profession, it only made sense that it came so naturally to them when they worked together. Then one day, Arthur is caught.</p><p>Or, when Arthur and Eames finally realize how much they mean to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inception and the characters involved do not belong to me

In comparison to their last couple jobs together, the one lined up next for Eames and Arthur is actually fairly simple. Even though the mark is an ex-military man, he is not militarized in the head because of his dishonorable discharge long before the PASIV program came into being. The lack of militarization always makes the extraction business much more colorful and sporadic when the dreamer isn't trained to be suspicious of dreams. Eames had teased Arthur about it when it came up, with this dream having the potential of being a lot more creative than their recent ones. In a quieter part of the brain he was still marveling at the idea of creating a kick in free fall. He certainly wouldn't have been able to come up with an answer to that with all his out-of-the-box boasting. His comment was met with an eye-roll. So okay, maybe Arthur wasn't as one dimensional as a loyal puppy to Cobb, and he had the habit of knowing everything that was going on, and maybe Eames respected this kid who he couldn't quite out a finger on and had no real person for the Forger to copy down to a T. Plus, Arthur seems to have warmed up to Eames as well. Their constant baiting of each other hasn't diminished any, but the bite has seeped from their words over the course of their makeshift partnership.

It's the first day of their latest job together. Halloween, actually. Eames personally hadn't celebrated it to such an extent back in his hometown, but respected the holiday of looting candy and pretending you're someone else. He never could have imagined spending Halloween invading people's dreams and stealing their innermost secrets back when he was a kid.

Their mark was Gerald Lexington. He had been seen lingering in the little Missourian town that is closest to that of a no-longer-operational governmental lab, hidden beneath the soil and under the guise of grain processing plant. Some higher ups who didn't give their names (but had flashed some pretty and completely official badges) wanted to know what was going on in Lexington's head. Eames got the call from an old friend of his and he called Arthur soon after.

The two strikingly different men had started a fragile project together of becoming the revamped duo of Cobb and Arthur. Well, it isn't necessarily what they intended initially, but after job after job closing like clockwork, their fame grew in the dreamshare world each day, not only meeting the reputation Arthur used to have with Cobb, but blowing that status out of the water. This had its drawbacks being so well known, but gallivanting the globe, pulling off 'the impossible' with a full pocket and no sense of self preservation in the line of duty had no price tag. It is exciting; it's what makes Eames feel alive. After inception, he realized that Arthur got the same thrill of defying the impossible that he did; and without the need to make sure Dom made it home, Arthur agreed to work alongside Eames for a large majority of his jobs.

So call it what you will, maybe a shiver down his spine, or the constant twitch of his fingertips, or his newly acquired spider sense, what have you, but Eames knows something is wrong the moment he enters the hangar.

He saunters in through the cracked open sliding door of the abandoned military base they've decided to take refuge in. With a scan of the room, he takes a quick headcount and it's clear they are short one Arthur. He motions to the empty desk with his thermos of tea (he couldn't risk buying a cup of it in this small of a town, his clothes and accent would be a little  _too_ memorable for his liking), asking anyone in the room who happens to be looking at him where the tightly wound proprietor of the desk was.

Eames has never really been known for his sparkling attendance, but at least he made an effort to get there within thirty minutes of their designated starting time. As for Arthur, he is always  _always_ the first one to the 'office'. So with knowing this, the lack of files and a humming laptop on the first day catches Eames off guard quite thoroughly.

Wilkes barely glances up from his Bristol board model of his museum before focusing his attention back to the paper he was cutting through with his Exacto knife.

Eames resists the annoyed twitch of his lip at the man and moves to his section of the sprawling space instead, deciding to let this one go as an anomaly of Arthur's track record. He flops into his chair with the grace of a lumbering dog and picks up the neat stack of files placed there for him the night before on the man he was supposed to forge for the mission.

After ten minutes of flipping through the list of restaurants George Kotsiopoulos frequents, Eames can't take it anymore; the silence is getting heavy due to the lack of furious flying of fingers tapping on the keyboard from Arthur's desk.

He tosses the open file onto the mess of files he's scattered about already and leans back in his seat, arms twined across his chest when he raises his voice to be heard by each of the team members. "So where _is_ our Point Man?"

"Late," Wilkes sniffs, his tone raspy from his bad smoking habit, "how's he s'posed to brief us on the job when he's not here? We can't work blind."

An airy, Italian lilted voice cuts through the string of complaints like a knife. "He sent us all the brief in an email so there's nothing for you to be confused about unless you admit to not being fully knowledgeable about what you were getting into, Charles.  _Stronzo_." The words are sharp and efficient, if not deceptively alluring in the voice they're strung together with.

Their extractor, Catalina, was the one who invited Eames onto the job and seems infinitely more interested in the potential situation than the architect muttering to himself is. It's hard to care about Wilkes and the rod shoved up his ass (such a large pole in fact, that the one Arthur is known for having is dwarfed in comparison) when Cat is slinks over, a soft smile on her face when she nicks the Englishman's tea and takes a small sip, eyes sparking with a barely concealed taunt. The damn minx.

She opens her mouth and okay, maybe she wasn't trying to conceal that taunt at all. "Are we just not interesting enough for you,  _darling_?" her eyebrow raises in challenge. But her expression sharpens instantly when Eames purses his lips into a worried line, the lack of volleyed flirtations cuing her instantly on weight of the situation.

Cat sobers up her playful mirth quickly. "He hasn't called, if that's what you're asking." She straightens to meet Eames eye to eye and Wilkes hacks out a phlegmy cough from his dark corner.

 _Idiot_ he thinks first. Eames glares at the bitter architect before pulling his attention back to Cat. She's wearing a worried crease in her brow and it takes the man a second to realize that she's mirroring his.  _Shit_ is what he thinks second.

"He could just be late you know," Cat offers hopefully.

But Eames shakes his head to dismiss the preposterous suggestion. He's not being paranoid, knowing peoples' tics is his job, and he's damn good at it. The best, from what he knows. And even a forger wet behind the ears after three jobs should know that Arthur is set up and neck deep in his research long before the rest of the team even decides to show up. This particular heist is about their fortieth job on the same team. Arthur being late - scratch that -  _one hour_ late, has wrong written all over it.

"He doesn't do late."

Cat nods in understanding and whips out her phone, dialing the number which Eames is sure the lovely woman can recite by heart already, with the rate of information exchange that goes on between extractor and point.

But when Cat shoots him a look when she tries to call Arthur, one that says  _he didn't pick up_ , Eames is already halfway out the door. Any good forger would know that Arthur always picks up when someone on the team calls. Eames tells himself that he only knows this because it's his job to observe how people act, not because he knows this from the fact that he's sending a majority of those calls and text messages.

He's sitting in his nondescript 1982 Ford pickup for a minute, staring off into the field that stretches out in all directions from their hideout with the car already sputtering with life. He tries to keep the knot of worry down but he just can't push it away. His grip clenches like iron on the steering wheel and he's shaking it as if he could rip it right off. He probably could too, with this hunk of junk.

"Shit.  _Fuck_!"

People like Arthur are too good to just be bait nowadays. Whatever happened, he was the target. Vendettas against dreamers are rarely pretty. And rarely are they ever hostage situations. In this world - the seedier world Eames dragged Arthur into – people like these aren't looking for money.

But he can't afford to think like that.

He puts the car in drive and speeds off.

* * *

Arthur was taken up by Mal and Dom during his stint in the military for one reason: he was the best. He didn't get to be the top of the subdivision without knowing how to fend for himself.

He's had a couple of scuffles; he's been chased through cities, chases with guns even. True, he's taken a few bullets before, but he's dusted off his mournfully ruined suits each time and pulled off an escape. The last time took him by surprise at an Opera house, and he had been wearing a heavenly black Fendi with narrow lapels and two buttons and it fit him so well that he didn't even have to get it tailored; it was such a shame he took a bullet right in the shoulder while wearing it, with a goddamn shotgun no less, so the back was now a wasteland of holes and tears and blood.

But even with a new set of stitches and a few extra bruises, he always wakes up the morning after the chase with a light feeling in his chest and a heavy sum in his wallet, signs of a job well done. Most of the time, these hijinks are when he decides to take up the jobs with Eames and his less than savory clientele who are so deep within the underbelly of the illegal world that they know actually quite a lot about dreamshare, or rather, what they can do with it. Nothing better than extracting from crime syndicates and mobsters all over the world. But he just can't say no whenever Eames rings him up with the customary " _Arthur! I was wondering, look, sorry about the close call last time, but I really think you'd enjoy this next job..._ " And god help him, he goes every time. He can get shot at and chased and threatened, but like a shadow, he slips out of their fingers each time, and they will never know it's him. And the call of the chase sucks him back all over again.

Bottom line, Arthur doesn't get caught. Ever since entering this globetrotting web of stealing thoughts from bad guys, he has about ten names on rotation (Arthur only being used for the more political jobs rather than the recently monikered 'black market' ones that Eames has a habit of taking). No one comes after him once he's disappeared. He changes his social security number once every month. He doesn't exist. A man who doesn't exist can't be tracked.

He's the best, by far, he's made sure of it. That's why a year after the inception job he and Eames worked together more often than not. In the realm of dreamshare, they had their reputation, even with the whole Fisher-Morrow fiasco under wraps.

But when you're the best, it damn well means that others won't be. Other people in this business can be caught when they're not as meticulous at getting out of trouble as Arthur is. Those ones tend to be the squealers.

So even though Arthur locks checks his lock ten times and stares out the window of his motel room in the middle of nowhere Missouri for a good fifteen minutes, he's a bit startled when a heavy blow comes at the door when he's checking his laptop.

He has his Glock off the safety and trained at the door before he can even blink. His muscles are wound tight, still like a predatory cat ready to pounce upon its prey.

When the second blow comes, it's an elbow through the thin door and Arthur takes no time fighting his way out. He has 17 rounds in the magazine of his gun, but he hopes he doesn't have to resort to using any. He flicks on the safety and spins the gun around his thumb for a little extra bite to his punches, making sure his palm smothers the guard in place so that there's no accidental bullet to the face due to his own stupidity. He darts out quickly, his free arm extended. He snatches the searching hand and twists it straight out toward him, locked in place. With his other arm flexed and bent, Arthur brings down the flat of his elbow onto the delicate bones right above the wrist, gracing the room with the loud snap and muffled gasp from outside.

The arm snaps back when Arthur lets it go. There's whimpering on the other side of the door and multiple voices hissing at each other. From the voices, Arthur counts at most five of them. He's already at least slowed down grunt number one. There's a faint "fucker broke my arm!" which he can't help but smirk at.

"What can I help you boys with?" His voice is steady, but his eyes can't help but wander over to his phone thrown on the table a good ways away. Someone should know, just in case...

"Oh Arthur," a gravelly voice coos, and a shiver drips down his spine at the utterance of his name. "You've made an important man  _very_ angry."

His stance shifts from an offensive position to a defensive one, just waiting for the next blow. Pissing them off even more doesn't look like it's going to make it any easier for himself. So he could have smacked the back of his head for the next word that comes out, but he was never really known for giving much of a snarky monologue anyway.

"Sorry." He gives a sad attempt of a shrug and says it like he doesn't mean it. Probably because he doesn't. They can tell.

" _Get him_!"

There's a roar and the whole door flies off its hinges. So much for being discreet. Two bulky men shoulder their way through the frame of the door, flanking him on each side. And here he was thinking he was going to have a relaxing three days before the next job. Hopefully he wasn't going to be getting any broken bones he has to treat while working point.

He lashes out, silently and with deadly intent.

Darting to his left, he smashes his heel onto the burly guy's toes, tucks a fist into his gut, and swings his elbow to catch the side of the temple, effectively stunning Thug Number Two without a scratch. He's not so efficient with Thug Number Three, who had moved in with a kick to the back of his knee and rendered Arthur to the floor. A punch followed not soon after, but Arthur managed to roll to the side to avoid the man staggering from the continued momentum of his haymaker. Springing up from his crouch, he lands a couple successive jabs to his opponent's side, cracking a rib or two with his gunned hand.

When Thug Number Three flinches, he doesn't have enough time to block the heel slamming into his knee from the side, knocking him down with a shocked grunt of pain. Arthur barely has time to catch his breath to steady himself before he's tackled from behind, newly dubbed Thug Number Four. He catches the corner of the mattress with his shoulder on his way down, one armed pinned to his body thanks to the clamp-like arms circling his middle. They land with a solid thump face down on the carpet,  _probably a lot less expensive than the carpet Saito was thinking about when he pointed out the crucial flaw in that ever fateful extraction plan_ he thinks dreamily, as he's momentarily stunned from being thrown to the ground. A thunderous blow to his ribs from the back wakes Arthur up and nearly instantaneously spurs him into action. He bucks back, trying to kick himself some wiggle room, grateful for any space created to get any better angle for punching Mr. Stereotypical gangster bodyguard right in the head with his gun. They switch off blows, both struggling to land solid hits from all the squirming around on the floor, neither men daring to make it easy for the other. Arthur gets a few good gun-assisted punches to the unlucky guy's ear, sure to have his head ringing. The beating on his back and side weaken as if on cue, the constant stream of unsteady blows to the head enough to briefly paralyze.

They're comparable to militarized projections with their ferocity, minus the important fact that they aren't projections. He's on the ground with one more active man (Thug Number Five, Arthur checks off on his mental list), his odds aren't looking good. He slips his arm free and switches his gun back around its regular position, stabilizing himself on the floor with his elbows for a more accurate shot.

"You're a dead man, Arthur."

He's met the barrel of a gun from across the room, as he expected. But Arthur hesitates, his silencer still stashed away in his suitcase. Thug Number Five steps forward with a lilt in his smile, sensing Arthur's hesitation. The stare they have locked on each other doesn't waver.

"Who are you working for?" Arthur asks as steady as he can manage, slightly winded and a little more wary.

The man stalks forward, a grim smirk on his face. He crouches down a few feet away from Arthur's unfortunate prostrate position, a man still tangled around his midsection slowly coming to and steadily decreasing his chance of escape with each passing second.

The man before him is a gaunt faced but able bodied young man, the smile twisting on his mouth not reaching his eyes. He blinks once and cocks his head.

"I'm not hired for this one. I volunteered." There's such glee in these words that Arthur has to repress a shudder.

 _Sigh_. Why doesn't he like the sound of that?

But... this boy sounds deadly, and his gun doesn't have a silencer on it, so if his threat is authentic like Arthur thinks it is, they must be certain that no one is around to hear this. They must have bought out the motel if they don't think anyone is here to get them in trouble.

Shooting to incapacitate, he clips the young man in the bicep with his initial shot, and then with a sudden snap and gurgle of red, Arthur gets the boy in the collarbone. He tries to scramble free with the sudden commotion, but the boy recovers quicker than Arthur expected. He's met with the cool, hard, familiar touch of the gun barrel pressing against the crown of his head before he can shimmy free. He stills completely, knowing when he's been beat. Had he been more prepared, he could've taken out all five guys. But now, he doesn't think he can twist out of the hold around his waist and get a good shot before being fatally wounded in his his current position.

"Drop the gun, Arthur." The command hangs in the air but the Point Man is less compliant with being stripped of his last defense. He closes his eyes and mouths over the shape of a swear.

His head is yanked up by a fist in his hair, and now the gun's being aimed straight at his left eye. His scalp prickles uncomfortably.

"I said. Drop. The gun. You don't want that information swimming in your head to get blown to bits, do you?"

Arthur's tries to hide his wince at the irony not lost on him. All his precious graphs and lists and research, stored in the left side of the brain, gone. The right side, with its lack of analytic ability, already considered a shriveled up piece of unused brain matter, according to some in the business, having got around through jobs whenever Eames mentioned it.

He drops the gun, watching the boy smile.

The gun draws back and the wavery expression is replaced with an ugly sneer, the anger boiling in there verging on the moment of overflowing that it ages Thug Number Five by ten years and suddenly he looks like he's not so new to this kind of situation anymore. "I promised I wouldn't kill you, but this is for my father."

 _Ah, 'Vengeful Son,'_ Arthur thinks,  _not 'Thug Number Five'_  the ever running list in his head registers for categorical sake before the punch hits him in the side of the head and he's out like a light.


	2. Chapter 2

When Arthur comes to, the first thing he mentally checks for is the weight of his die in the pocket sewed to the inside of his vest. It's still there. He can't feel his phone in his pant pocket even though he remembered taking the opportunity of snatching it when those goons were breaking through the door. This memory has Arthur snapping to full alertness.

Shit. He was kidnapped.

Only then does it finally register that he's zip-tied to a chair in the middle of what looks like an abandoned, dilapidated barn. This doesn't look good. Arthur's eyes dart around, looking for an escape route while he tests the ties around his wrists and ankles. But his brain is working at a snail's pace (for him) and the ties are already biting into the thin flesh... wait, around his palms? Arthur looks over his shoulder to see, yep, the back of his hands glued together and palms facing out with the zip-tie cutting right into the crease where he cradles his gun. That's going to be a bitch when it's healing if he tries to struggle free. It's obvious that these guys aren't looking to make this easy on him.

He's accounting for all his bruises on his knee, side, and head when a door slams open behind him, the loud noise making his temples throb in protest.

"Do you want to know who sold you out?" booms a familiar voice, filling the void in the empty, creaking barn.

Arthur keeps his mouth shut when he hears the padding of feet on dirt come closer.

"It's okay if I tell you, you can't hold too much of a grudge on him. After all, he's already dead." The boyish-looking man from earlier stops a few feet away from Arthur and for his credit, he doesn't try to jump from his seat and throttle the guy right there. He sits stock still, staring blankly ahead, but this only seems to infuriate his company.

The breath is ripped out of Arthur's chest when he's flung back, the stability of the front legs lost, and he's strapped down with his hands nearly touching the ground. It's like that time Eames tipped him off balance when he was leaning in his chair, but the whole tipping part is backwards and there is no solid floor at his feet to catch him. Being yanked back in his seat nearly be thrown to the ground was a sensation that sped up Arthur's heart rate a little more than he'd like to admit. The sullen face twinkles darkly above him from upside down, his grip strong on the back of the chair pressing into Arthur's shoulder blades.

"He was the extractor for a job where my father was your  _mark_." He hisses out the last word and punctuates it by spitting on the man beneath him.

Arthur hides his shudder from showing when the viscous glob rolls off his cheek. He stares up at the young man above him and runs through the files in his head trying to place where he's seen this insane-eyed, boy-ish faced, fit bodied son of a mark for a job. Who has a New York accent and could quite possibly be of Eastern European roots. Then it clicks.

"You're Emilio," Arthur addresses, deadpanned. "I remember researching you. Attending private school until you dropped off the grid the year before you graduated, then magically reappearing under the alias Daniel Russo at Harvard Law a few years later. Learning how to keep daddy's henchmen from being put in jail, I found out." Correct in this recall, the thirty-two year old son of a drug lord widened his eyes in shock, but he quickly masks his surprise.

"You are good at your job," Emilio admits with a glare.

"The best," Arthur corrects.

That earns him a swift punch to the face and his eye is already throbbing when Emilio draws back his fist. Maybe he deserved that one. Provoking his could be murderer shouldn't be Arthur's plan of attack, but the more flustered he can make his enemy, the more likely the other man will be prone to making a mistake. That's all Arthur can hope for.

Emilio draws himself back and matches Arthur's steady gaze. "Then you must know what I invested my time in after Harvard?"

Damn. It can't be helped, they both know.

"Dreamshare." But where Emilio went from there, Arthur had no clue. All information he tried to dig up about the son had come up with false leads.

"It's where I get my paycheck now." The man across from him is smug at the admission.

So he knows. Emilio knows everything there is to know about dreaming. Tied to a chair and no secrets up his sleeve, Arthur is not in a good position. He schools his face, not hinting at the millions of thoughts racing through his head.

"What's your job?" he asks.

There's a small pause, then, "Point."

"Ah."  _Interesting._ "Are you jealous?"

The man's eye twitches minutely. "We work for a different market, it's hard to compare."

 _Liar._  "So what happened to your dad that made you snap?"

This time, his words are strung a bit tighter. "He was killed."

"He was the head honcho of a major drug cartel, does this surprise you?"

Arthur can tell that his words are getting to Emilio, but the enraged son is reigning in his frustrations with a self-control that Arthur had not given him credit for. The chair he's strapped to is thrown back into place to its upright position and his possible concussion takes a second to catch up with it, his head spinning.

When Emilio speaks, Arthur can tell that the man is standing directly in front of him now. "And I know you tapped into private conversations. That information that you have, you stole it! No one was supposed to know, and now my father is dead because of what you did!"

So he's keeping the topic of the information a secret, most likely because his lackeys are in the room with them. Great, more people to deal with. His getaway scheme is certainly not holding back on its level of difficulty.

 _Be as obnoxious as you can be to make him mess up_ , Arthur screams in his head, eyeing the switchblade that in suddenly glinting in Emilio's hand. How can he piss this guy off? He seems dead set on killing Arthur no matter what, not nearly being thrown off his game enough to be deterred from his ultimate goal.

The serrated knife attachment flicks out of the switchblade and Arthur's mouth opens before he can even think through what is spilling out of him. The only thing on his mind is to act annoying and as much like Eames as possible. If anything, he can taunt the man into deciding to torture him instead. Not a glamorous option, but if he's being tortured, then he'll still be alive.

"Darling, we both know your dad was a bastard who deserved what he got," Arthur shrugs. Wait… Had he thrown a 'darling' in there when he was mimicking Eames? That wasn't supposed to come out.

But 'darling' or not, Emilio still halted his prowling advance. "What did you say?" the question is heavy with the weight of a growl, its owner fully aware of what was said.

"Don't insult us both by playing dumb, you did go to Harvard,  _Daniel_. He had one of the largest drug rings in North America, killed his brother to keep the profits for himself, and was letting hundreds of people die for him every year. He even took you out of private school when he found out you were gay so he could 'straighten you out'. Face it Emilio, he's right where he belongs: six feet underground."

A strangled shriek alerts Arthur to a taunting well done, but he can barely revel in his accomplishment before his jaw is being gripped by a claw. Emilio's wild face is inches from his own and his eyes are as sharp as the knife he's wielding.

"How  _dare_  you speak of him that way." The short tether the man was hanging on by has most certainly snapped, and the way he's carrying himself screams danger. "He  _fixed_  me. He made me who I am. I loved him! And  _you_ got inside his head to steal what was ours!"

Arthur stiffens when the blade is skimming down his throat, making sure he doesn't swallow when it passes over his adam's apple. The pointed edge rests in the dip his collarbone. Flickering his eyes down to Emilio's own collarbone has his stomach churning with the mixed feeling of pride and dread. The man's arm and torso are already bandaged up from the bullets that they took from Arthur's Glock. Glad that he at least got a couple shots in, worried what it might mean for him. This guy seemed to have a messed up 'eye for an eye' view on life, if killing the whole team who extracted an idea from his father could be used as an example.

"Shh, it's okay," Emilio whispers in his ear when the knife continues on its path down Arthur's chest once again.

It's not pressing hard enough to pierce the skin, but the presence of a knife near his body at all makes the Point Man a little uncomfortable. One wrong move here and he's dead; there's no waking up in the level above. The hand gripping the sides of his face are squeezing tighter and Arthur glares heatedly into the black eyes boring back at him.

The knife stops right over the hidden pocket in his vest and suddenly Arthur can't breathe. A gentle caress replaces the hard hand at his jaw and he flinches away from the touch, trying to make it seem that his squeamishness was because of the cheek stroking, not the knife pointing to his die through his clothes. He has to play this cool and hope that it was just a fluke where the blade ended up.

"Oh Arthur," the drug lord in training sighed, the name rolling off his tongue like a purr and sending a lead weight of anxiousness down into the pit of Arthur's stomach. Lips are brushing against the shell of his ear when the lowered voice hisses again. "You don't have to play dumb," Emilio recycles the insult thrown at him earlier and leans back with the first genuine happy smile he's given tonight, positively gleeful and frightening. He fists a hand in Arthur's mussed hair and yanks, hard. "The man who sold you out already told me where you hide your totem."

He struggles briefly when the switchblade flashes and tears a hole into his new charcoal grey Rag & Bone vest - simultaneously ripping out a whimper of grief from the suited for all occasions Point Man at the loss - but he's quickly detained by strong hands locking him down on both shoulders, effectively keeping him begrudgingly immobile. It doesn't stop Arthur from grunting and twisting every which way to make it difficult for the men to take his totem, even if it is just inevitable.

"Stop your squirming!"

A heavy blow to the stomach has reduced Arthur from a struggling hostage to a doubled-over marionette with its strings cut, gasping for breath. The most he can manage when a hand slips in the hole of his vest to retrieve his die is to wheeze out a not so threatening "fuck you."

The chorus of laughter surrounding him makes Arthur burn with humiliated fury. He can't believe he's actually caught up in this. Is this really happening? How did he let it get to this point? He was always supposed to be able to get away... His invincibility was short-lived and a dream in itself, really. He and Eames had clawed their way up to the top, it only made sense that someone was going to oppose that. But the notion that he can't slip out of this one as well is absolutely absurd. What makes this criminal any different than another criminal?

Even when Emilio holds up Arthur's red die to the single light fixture glaring above their heads, beating down accusingly on them, Arthur can barely believe it.

"Don't you dare," he chokes, but his warning is ignored.  _Oh god, no._

"So this is the legendary Point Man's totem..." The tiny cube is being examined as if it was some lost treasure. Maybe in his jilted, revenge-driven mind, it is. Arthur lurches forward in his chair, snarling, but the hands hold him fast and he sits back, muscles quivering in anger.  _That's his die, and another person is has it._

"Give it back!" He barks, unable to keep it from exploding within him. He's played cool and aloof for as long as he could, but making it difficult for this evil man in order to buy himself more time has pushed him as far as he was willing to go. Emilio is holding his fucking totem _._

Emilio cocks his head and his mock-pitying expression has Arthur dying to rip this man's face clean off. "You know, for as complicated as you make yourself, your totem is overwhelmingly mundane."

The taunt is meant to anger him and he can't help but get angry. This sick bastard has everything he needs to make Arthur's life a confusing hellhole, and no, he's not alright with that. He doesn't want to think about how many times he's been lectured on how he should never ever let someone have his totem. In the Army, by Dom, by Mal, and then by Dom again after his wife's death. By this time in his life, it should almost be embarrassing. The punch to his gut had worn off but still Arthur finds it hard to breathe like there's a balloon growing ever larger in his chest. This isn't right, this  _can't be happening_. He doesn't want to lose his mind.

He watches with wide eyes as Emilio spins the die in his hand, cataloging each of the six sides with equal fascination. With every stroke over an imperfection on the little red cube, Arthur feels his insides twisting up further, an impending fear of something bad hovering over him thick and freezing and final like an avalanche. He can't avoid this ominous  _thing_ that he knows has the ability to end him. Is this what hopelessness feels like? He hasn't felt this way on any job before this, even when he thought he could drop dead right then and there.

But as he stares in horror when his die is rolled on the ground at his feet, the three white dots like a beacon calling out to everyone in the room, he knows he hasn't felt this before because he has never been this scared in his life.

Not ever.

"Three, hm?"

Arthur closes his eyes.

"So it's a weighted die."

Emilio is first to break through the silence, overhanging the four of them with baited breath. He seems to contemplate the totem lying in the dirt for a moment, before picking it up and rolling it again. Three again. Same as it would always be in the real world. And now in his dreams, it would seem. He needs to make sure he can retain his grasp on this reality or else he could wind up like Mal. If he does, there's no way in telling if in a few days he's begging someone to kill him so he could get back to the waking world when he's not asleep. Is that their plan? Make him ask for his own death? He swears not to give them that honor.

"Wouldn't take you as a gambling man, my friend."

Arthur struggles to suck in air, shaking from a mixture of fury and frustration, stomping down on his fear before it rears its ugly head and makes him a pitiful, whimpering fool. He licks his chapped lips.

"When I know my odds," he forces out, his voice only wavering the slightest bit.

Emilio is amused by the response, throwing up the die and catching it in the same hand, one eyebrow quirked. "And what would you say your odds of getting out of this are?" This stirs up quiet laughter from the two thugs restraining him, earning them both a murderous glare from their captive.

The man holds the totem - though, not Arthur's anymore, he can never use that same one again - in the flat of his hand, right in front of the Point Man for him to snatch up if he had use of his numb, bloody hands. They twitch uselessly behind him and the wince that flashes over Arthur's face is gone before it was noticed. This isn't a good position to be in. He says as much.

"Probably not good ones," he admits, emotions blank and voice even.

Emilio's young face is just as somber when he replies, all previous emotions slipping off him like water and leaving just a frightening mold of a man, filled with nothing but deep seated rage and insanity. "No. You're absolutely right. They aren't very good odds."

When he picks up the die and walks away, Arthur can just register the cannula being slipped into the inside of his elbow as the two thugs descend upon him with unrelenting kicks and punches.

* * *

Eames has his Heckler & Koch cocked and ready, aimed right between the motel owner's eyes. This is where Arthur told him he was staying and so far, he found one ransacked room and no other guests.

"Listen, mate, this is looking awfully suspicious, so either you're going to tell me what happened to the man who was checked in here or your brains are going to be the new wallpaper for your office."

"I-I'm sorry!" the portly man squeaks out, his hands raised and quivering with fright. "I don't know what happened to your friend!"

The stupidity of some people is too much sometimes. As if he expected this lowly motel owner with sweat stains in his clothes, a receding hairline, and no money to his name - until very recently, it seems, when Eames spies the brand new white-gold Rolex shining on the guy's wrist - has anything to do with planned kidnapping of a professional thief.

"Please," he scoffs at the idea, enjoying himself as he watches the man fidget under the barrel of his gun. "I know you don't know where they took him, but who bought you out?"

The man just whimpers.

"Who was it!" He's yelling and pressing his gun right between the perspiring motel owner's eyes, not wanting to waste another minute of his time down here with this buffoon.

"H-he came in four nights ago!" The blubbering man stammers out. His name is Chris, Eames notes by the name tag pinned to his shirt, but he doesn't look like one. "He g-gave me ten thousand bucks to not have any new customers other than the guy in room 27, and to steer clear the next night. I don't know what happened, man, I couldn't say no to that kind of money! You have to u-understand!" He sounds nervous even when asking for forgiveness.

Of course Eames understands greed and the temptation of money. He is a thief with a taste for fine art and secrets after all. But selling out a man's life for money is not okay in his book. And this guy has already royally pissed him off by having that man who he sold out be Arthur.

"Tell me what happened," he says slowly, gun still raised, "from the beginning."

Chris' eyes dart left and right before he answers, as if trying to find a way out, not knowing that a man with Eames' experience would ever let a way out ever become an issue. Predictably, Chris doesn't find his chance of escape, so he takes a deep breath as if he's about to recite a lengthy story.

"T-that guy, your friend, came in round five days ago, looking to stay for two weeks. He was dressed pretty fancy, like you said, um, brown hair, slicked back—"

"Okay, yes, that's him! What else?" Eames doesn't need a picture of the Point Man drawn out for him; he knows what most people look like with a few minutes of looking at them. He probably could draw Chris perfectly already, and he's barely known the guy for five minutes. He's always been good at remembering what people look like. And ever since working with Arthur on a regular basis, he's become very acquainted with how the slim, tailored, dimpled man looked. Eames could get him down to the short fingernails that Arthur picked out when he was stressed and thought no one was watching; it was the personality that he couldn't master.

He shakes his head of the distracting thoughts of the missing man, and comes to mid explanation. "Wait, come again?"

Chris looks mildly peeved at being asked to repeat himself, but he's not exactly in a position to do anything about it. "Some guy came in a day after I gave your friend his room. He, I dunno, he was tall. A big guy, not as big as you though," he adds, as if complimenting the man with a gun to his head would make Eames reconsider. It doesn't. "He said, uh… he said that he needed my place for the next night and dropped a bag full of money right on my desk, saying he'd pay me twice that afterward. I haven't seen him though…"

Eames knows this guy will come back. With a trail like this you need to be positive the people you buy off aren't going to say anything. How he feels about the possibility of Arthur's captors coming back to the motel is split right down the middle. If this man comes back, Eames can be here ready to bury a bullet right in the guy's throat. On the other hand, when he comes back, it means for whatever reasons they took Arthur for, the deed is done. He can't wait here to let it come to that. He's got to find Arthur before he knows it's too late.

"Don't worry, he'll be back to give you your money," Eames spits, clearly disgusted by how this situation was handled. "Did he say anything? Anything at all that could be helpful?"

Chris squints his eyes and looks like he's thinking really hard. Eames has to calm himself down before he erupts and unloads round upon round on this whimpery, pathetic excuse of a man.

"He said… he said that it was real important that, I um. Not tell anybu-hu-dy…" Chris hiccups when his eyes overflow with tears and he's sobbing for his life from two men in one week who have threatened him in his own motel.

From the second Eames had entered the establishment, he should've used his ability to read people and know that this interrogation was going to get him nowhere. He swipes the keycard and phone on the counter and pockets it.

"You're a sorry sod, mate, I'm sorry you endangered my friend, or else I wouldn't have to do this."

"Wha— AHH!"

Eames spins on his heel and walks out the door, satisfied that the cops won't be coming for him since he already took the time to cut off the landline and steal the guy's cellphone. He leaves a whimpering Chris to tend to the bullet wound in his hand by himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! So I started this on fanfiction but I personally have made the transition over to this site, so when I got my account it only seemed right to post it here. This story is going to be dark, so I hope you're prepared for some angst, torture, and hopefully some insightful character studies. I find these two in the movie captivating, and their banter ranges from snipes to concern, suggesting some sort of history between the two. So anyway, this couldn't be left alone. This version of the story will probably have more slashy undertones than the post on ff, but considering that's more than 80% of the posts here anyway, I figured people wouldn't mind.
> 
> This is a response to an Inceptionkink fill on being buried alive, and I sort of let it get away from me. Hope you enjoy!


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